It's pretty much a given that everyone on here has some sort of socio-political position which they'll defend with at least a reasonable degree of energy. Libertarians, capitalists, socialists and so on. All are implicitly making the claim that their model for society would work the best.

What I'd be interested in is people's thoughts on the following scenario.

We all find ourselves living in a world akin to an online game. It is divided into kingdoms that are like self-contained servers. Each of these servers has an omnipotent enforcer, who instantly and permanently removes 'frauds' from that particular world. Therefore, only people who really want to live in each world with 'good' intent - i.e. those who aren't there to simply undermine that world's ethos - can exist there. Scare quotes around 'good' because it isn't a moral judgement, but just an indicator of those who are there because it suits their own interests and are not actively working against that world's ideology.

People can freely choose which world they will live in. Knowing that they will be rejected from worlds in which they don't 'truly' believe, they always pick the one which they think best matches their interests and beliefs.

In each world, you will 'die' - be rejected from it - if you break the given set of rules.

In this vein, we may find the following:

1) An anarchist world, where there are no rules enforced beyond those each individual can enforce for themselves.2) A libertarian world, where there is effectively only one rule: no unprovoked violence. What constitutes provocation is agreed to be deliberate significant and/or consistent interference with the behaviour of others.3) A capitalist world. This has more developed rules than the libertarian world, such as no deliberate or consistent interference with the behaviour of others by direct physical means. Coercive pressures are allowed so long as they are indirect, such as one person manipulating a situation so that another person will do their bidding in exchange for potentially unequal reward. That is to say, supply capacity is considered justification for coercing the behaviour of others.4) A socialist world. This is the same as the capitalist world, only supply capacity is not seen as a justification for coercing the behaviour of others. Therefore any coercion must be the outcome of a equal power relationship and exploitation of advantage is not allowed.

Remembering that all these worlds are governed by perfect overseers - whose judgement is infallible and instantaneous - there is then a question: with governance removed from the equation, what kinds of people do you think each of these worlds will attract and what does the kind of person each world attracts say about it?

At 10/14/2016 10:31:28 PM, Graincruncher wrote:It's pretty much a given that everyone on here has some sort of socio-political position which they'll defend with at least a reasonable degree of energy. Libertarians, capitalists, socialists and so on. All are implicitly making the claim that their model for society would work the best.

What I'd be interested in is people's thoughts on the following scenario.

We all find ourselves living in a world akin to an online game. It is divided into kingdoms that are like self-contained servers. Each of these servers has an omnipotent enforcer, who instantly and permanently removes 'frauds' from that particular world. Therefore, only people who really want to live in each world with 'good' intent - i.e. those who aren't there to simply undermine that world's ethos - can exist there. Scare quotes around 'good' because it isn't a moral judgement, but just an indicator of those who are there because it suits their own interests and are not actively working against that world's ideology.

People can freely choose which world they will live in. Knowing that they will be rejected from worlds in which they don't 'truly' believe, they always pick the one which they think best matches their interests and beliefs.

In each world, you will 'die' - be rejected from it - if you break the given set of rules.

In this vein, we may find the following:

1) An anarchist world, where there are no rules enforced beyond those each individual can enforce for themselves.2) A libertarian world, where there is effectively only one rule: no unprovoked violence. What constitutes provocation is agreed to be deliberate significant and/or consistent interference with the behaviour of others.3) A capitalist world. This has more developed rules than the libertarian world, such as no deliberate or consistent interference with the behaviour of others by direct physical means. Coercive pressures are allowed so long as they are indirect, such as one person manipulating a situation so that another person will do their bidding in exchange for potentially unequal reward. That is to say, supply capacity is considered justification for coercing the behaviour of others.4) A socialist world. This is the same as the capitalist world, only supply capacity is not seen as a justification for coercing the behaviour of others. Therefore any coercion must be the outcome of a equal power relationship and exploitation of advantage is not allowed.

Remembering that all these worlds are governed by perfect overseers - whose judgement is infallible and instantaneous - there is then a question: with governance removed from the equation, what kinds of people do you think each of these worlds will attract and what does the kind of person each world attracts say about it?

I find it interesting that we live in the "anarchist world" but have created a society.

How would things work in the socialist world? If I offer my workers say $1 an hour, does the wage auto change to the "fair" rate?